Bestiary · Slavic · God
Perun
Also known as: Perun's, Piorun, Perkunas, Perkūnas, Perkune
The Slavic god of thunder, whose club or arrows split the storm clouds; in folk belief his place was later taken by the Prophet Elijah.
Perun is the thunder god of the old Slavs, known to the Lithuanians as Perkunas. His weapons are the club, the axe, the arrow and the stone, and Afanasyev reads all of them as the lightning, which splits the dark clouds and releases the rain. Lithuanian prayers begged Perkunas not to strike the fields and promised him a side of bacon. In Christian times much of his lore passed to the prophet Elijah, who in folk belief "stands in place of Perun".
In volume III Afanasyev argues that the devil of folk belief is in large part the old thunder god turned into a demon: his limp, his fire and his dwelling in the storm cloud all come from Perun.